What the numbers tell: The impact of human, family and financial capital on women and men's entry into entrepreneurship in Turkey

Entrepreneurship contributes to economic development in countries worldwide. Entrepreneurial activity is beneficial for both men and women, including those in developing countries. However, men and women may not engage in entrepreneurship to the same extent because of differential access to (various forms of) capital. This study examines the relative importance of three types of capital – human, family and financial – in pursuing entrepreneurship. Using data collected in Turkey, we find that regardless of sex, all three forms of capital influence the likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur in varying degrees. Contrary to expectations, the impact of human capital on the likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur is higher for women than men. Data also revealed that family capital facilitates women's entry into entrepreneurship only when family size is very large (i.e. seven or more). No gender differences are observed in the impact of financial capital on the likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur. Findings suggest that to encourage entrepreneurship in Turkey, policy-makers should emphasize access to human and financial capital. Furthermore, findings suggest that women's likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur will be especially encouraged if they have increased access to education, as well as the skills necessary to take advantage of their family capital.

[1]  P. England.  Toward gender equality: Progress and bottlenecks , 2006 .

[2]  Roy Thurik,et al.  Post-Materialism: A Cultural Factor influencing Total Entrepreneurial Activity across Nations , 2004 .

[3]  E. Santarelli,et al.  CAPITAL CONSTRAINTS AND THE PERFORMANCE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL FIRMS IN VIETNAM (SUMMARY) , 2014 .

[4]  J. Coleman,et al.  Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital , 1988, American Journal of Sociology.

[5]  F. Bin Yahya.  Chapter Five. Knowledge-based economy , 2008 .

[6]  Oecd Ocde.  Education At A Glance , 2005 .

[7]  Carter Sara,et al.  The financing of male– and female–owned businesses , 1998 .

[8]  Mustafa Özbilgin,et al.  Against the Tide: Gendered Prejudice and Disadvantage in Engineering , 2007 .

[9]  Muzaffer Bodur,et al.  Arabic cluster: a bridge between East and West , 2002 .

[10]  S. Holden.  Education at a Glance , 2006, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Higher Education.

[11]  Friederike Welter,et al.  The Distinctiveness of Entrepreneurship in Transition Economies , 2001, Entrepreneurship and Context.

[12]  Gerard Delanty.  The Foundations of Social Theory , 2009 .

[13]  Türker Özkan,et al.  Masculinity, Femininity, and the Bem Sex Role Inventory in Turkey , 2005 .

[14]  D. Archibugi.  Making New Technologies Work for Human Development: United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2001, Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, July 2001, 278 pp., Price [UK pound]19.99, ISBN: 0-19-521835-3 , 2002 .

[15]  D. Cetindamar.  Policy issues for Turkish entrepreneurs , 2005 .

[16]  Roy Thurik,et al.  Linking Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth , 1999 .

[17]  T. Schuller.  The Complementary Roles of Human and Social Capital , 2001 .

[18]  Howard E. Aldrich,et al.  Resource Mobilization through Ethnic Networks , 1987 .

[19]  J. Wright,et al.  Family social capital and delinquent involvement , 2001 .

[20]  S. A. Wasti,et al.  Cultural barriers in the transferability of Japanese and American human resources practices to developing countries: the Turkish case , 1998 .

[21]  R. Hisrich,et al.  Women entrepreneurs in a developing economy , 1999 .

[22]  Lowell W. Busenitz,et al.  The entrepreneurship of resource-based theory , 2001 .

[23]  D. Bowen,et al.  The Female Entrepreneur: A Career Development Perspective , 1986 .

[24]  M. Hegland.  Women and Words in Saudi Arabia: The Politics of Literary Discourse , 1997 .

[25]  J. Fitzmaurice.  Economy and Society , 1998 .

[26]  P. Dorfman,et al.  Cultural clusters: methodology and findings , 2002 .

[27]  S. Ghoshal,et al.  Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage , 1998 .

[28]  Y. Haberfeld.  Employment Discrimination: An Organizational Model , 1992 .

[29]  E. Brainerd.  Women in Transition: Changes in Gender Wage Differentials in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union , 2000 .

[30]  Anne S. York,et al.  Attitudes Toward Entrepreneurship and Small Business: Findings from a Survey of Nebraska Residents and Small Business Owners , 2008 .

[31]  N. Oliver,et al.  People power , 2014, Nature.

[32]  Barbara M. Masser,et al.  Reinforcing the Glass Ceiling: The Consequences of Hostile Sexism for Female Managerial Candidates , 2004 .

[33]  Paul D. Reynolds,et al.  Discontinuance among new firms in retail: The influence of initial resources, strategy, and gender , 1997 .

[34]  Z. Aycan.  Key Success Factors for Women in Management in Turkey , 2004 .

[35]  C. P. Goodman,et al.  The Tacit Dimension , 2003 .

[36]  M. Heilman,et al.  Penalties for success: reactions to women who succeed at male gender-typed tasks. , 2004, The Journal of applied psychology.

[37]  R. Burt.  The contingent value of social capital. , 1997 .

[38]  P. Adler,et al.  Social Capital: Prospects for a New Concept , 2002 .

[39]  V. Nee,et al.  Immigrant self-employment: the family as social capital and the value of human capital. , 1996 .

[40]  Howard E. Aldrich,et al.  Access (Not) Denied: The Impact of Financial, Human, and Cultural Capital on Entrepreneurial Entryin the United States , 2006 .

[41]  I. Peña.  Intellectual capital and business start‐up success , 2002 .

[42]  Vishal K. Gupta,et al.  Cross-Cultural Similarities and Differences in Characteristics Attributed to Entrepreneurs , 2009 .

[43]  Timothy Bates.  Entrepreneur Human Capital Inputs and Small Business Longevity , 1990 .

[44]  Dean Patton,et al.  All Credit to Men? Entrepreneurship, Finance, and Gender , 2005 .

[45]  H. Tucker.  Undoing Shame: Tourism and Women's Work in Turkey , 2007 .

[46]  Maria Minniti,et al.  The Entrepreneurial Propensity of Women , 2007 .

[47]  D. Turban,et al.  The Role of Gender Stereotypes in Perceptions of Entrepreneurs and Intentions to Become an Entrepreneur , 2009 .

[48]  C. Brush.  Research on Women Business Owners: Past Trends, a New Perspective and Future Directions , 1992 .

[49]  N. Adler,et al.  Women in Management Worldwide , 1988 .

[50]  Z. Aycan,et al.  Relative Contributions of Childcare, Spousal Support, and Organizational Support in Reducing Work–Family Conflict for Men and Women: The Case of Turkey , 2005 .

[51]  Amani K. Hamdan,et al.  Women and Education in Saudi Arabia: Challenges and Achievements. , 2005 .

[52]  Bob Carter.  Adoption of the Organising Model in British Trade Unions: Some Evidence from Manufacturing, Science and Finance (MSF) , 2000 .

[53]  M. Hitt,et al.  Direct and Moderating Effects of Human Capital on Strategy and Performance in Professional Service Firms: A Resource-Based Perspective , 2001 .

[54]  Roy Thurik,et al.  Explaining female and male entrepreneurship at the country level , 2005 .

[55]  Roy Thurik,et al.  Start-Up Capital: "Does Gender Matter?" , 2001 .

[56]  I. Verheul,et al.  Is there a (fe)male approach? Understanding gender differences in entrepreneurship , 2005 .

[57]  B. Uzzi,et al.  Social Structure and Competition in Interfirm Networks: The Paradox of Embeddedness , 1997 .

[58]  Stephan M. Wilson,et al.  Family‐Based Social Capital Considerations as Predictors of Attainments Among Appalachian Youth , 1999 .

[59]  S. Kovacheva.  The role of family social capital in young people’s transition from school to work in Bulgaria , 2004 .

[60]  Timothy Bates,et al.  Financing small business creation: The case of Chinese and Korean immigrant entrepreneurs , 1997 .

[61]  Nancy M. Carter,et al.  The Differential Effect of Men and Women Entrepreneurs’ Human Capital and Networking on Growth Expectancies in Bulgaria , 2007 .

[62]  Onur Özsoy,et al.  Growth Plans of Small Businesses in Turkey: Individual and Environmental Influences , 2006 .

[63]  S. Birley.  The Role of Networks in the Entrepreneurial Process , 1985 .

[64]  D. Turban,et al.  The effect of gender stereotype activation on entrepreneurial intentions. , 2008, The Journal of applied psychology.

[65]  Hatun Ufuk,et al.  Interaction between the Business and Family Lives of Women Entrepreneurs in Turkey , 2001 .

[66]  B. Honig.  Who gets the goodies? An examination of microenterprise credit in Jamaica , 1998 .

[67]  M. Gabel,et al.  Economic Integration and Mass Politics: Market Liberalization and Public Attitudes in the European Union , 1998 .

[68]  Jean-Etienne de Bettignies,et al.  Financing entrepreneurship: Bank finance versus venture capital , 2007 .

[69]  Gerard McElwee,et al.  Women entrepreneurs in Oman: some barriers to success , 2003 .

[70]  R. Kasaba,et al.  The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy: The Nineteenth Century. , 1990 .

[71]  Anne S. York,et al.  The Effects of Geography and Age on Women's Attitudes towards Entrepreneurship , 2008 .

[72]  Neal M. Ashkanasy,et al.  The Anglo Cluster: legacy of the British empire , 2002 .

[73]  J. Barney.  Is the Resource-Based “View” a Useful Perspective for Strategic Management Research? Yes , 2001 .

[74]  Richard L. Priem,et al.  Is the Resource-Based “View” a Useful Perspective for Strategic Management Research? , 2001 .

[75]  T. Schultz.  Investment in Man: An Economist's View , 1959, Social Service Review.

[76]  M. M. Hart,et al.  Women entrepreneurs, their ventures, and the venture capital industry : an annotated bibliography , 2003 .

[77]  Gerhard G. van de Bunt,et al.  How social and human capital influence opportunity recognition and resource mobilization in India's handloom industry , 2010 .

[78]  K. Watkins.  Human Development Report 2006 - Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis , 2006 .

[79]  A. Tansel.  Public‐Private Employment Choice, Wage Differentials, and Gender in Turkey , 2004, Economic Development and Cultural Change.

[80]  E. Menaghan,et al.  Family social capital and children's behavior problems. , 1993 .

[81]  Loet Leydesdorff,et al.  The Knowledge-Based Economy , 2006 .

[82]  Per Davidsson,et al.  Where do they come from? Prevalence and characteristics of nascent entrepreneurs , 2000 .

[83]  M. Heilman,et al.  Entrepreneurship as a solution: The allure of self-employment for women and minorities , 2003 .

[84]  Hetty van Emmerik,et al.  Gender differences in the creation of different types of social capital: A multilevel study , 2006, Soc. Networks.

[85]  A. Portes.  Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology , 1998 .

[86]  Armin Schwienbacher.  A theoretical analysis of optimal financing strategies for different types of capital-constrained entrepreneurs , 2007 .

[87]  Allen C. Bluedorn,et al.  Beyond Creative Destruction and Entrepreneurial Discovery: A Radical Austrian Approach to Entrepreneurship , 2007 .

[88]  O. Krasovka,et al.  Enterprising Women in Transition Economies , 2006 .

[89]  P. Davidsson,et al.  The role of social and human capital among nascent entrepreneurs , 2000 .

[90]  E. Autio,et al.  Global Entrepreneurship Monitor: Data Collection Design and Implementation 1998–2003 , 2005 .

[91]  Steve Hunt,et al.  Global Entrepreneurship Monitor: Data Collection Design and Implementation , 2005 .